FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   >>  
as equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded. Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of me is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him. It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought--no, not alleviation--but a certain callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which has finally severed me from my own face and nature. My provision of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out for a fresh supply and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and the firs
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   >>  



Top keywords:

Jekyll

 

closer

 

thought

 
loathed
 
fallen
 

suicide

 
attachment
 

passion

 

recall

 

abjection


useless
 

freeze

 

father

 

portrait

 

destroying

 
burning
 

letters

 

ruined

 

prolong

 
wonderful

involve

 
sicken
 

renewed

 

provision

 

nature

 

experiment

 

draught

 
ebullition
 

supply

 

severed


finally

 

suffice

 

torments

 

blasphemies

 

suffered

 

brought

 

alleviation

 

calamity

 

punishment

 

callousness


acquiescence

 

despair

 

description

 

instinct

 

offices

 

insurgent

 
horror
 

mutter

 

sinned

 

gesticulated